Caribbean Educational Research Journal The University of the West Indies Vol. 4, No. 1, April 2016, 37-46 Cave Hill Campus E-orality, Language Development and Communicative Competence of a Yoruba Child: Issues and Challenges Azeez Akinwumi Sesan* and Lucky Aikabeli *Osun State University, Ikire Campus, Osun State, Nigeria Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria Linguists and other language experts have acknowledged that language is primarily spoken before its secondary function of writing. The developmental stages of a child are pre-dominated by speeches of the adults and other caregivers in the child's environment. In the traditional Yoruba societies and before the modern social structures, the child's language and speech development was enhanced with series of oral performances. With the emergence of modern technologies of communication such as radio, television and internet, there has been a change in the psychodynamics of oral literature and hence, the phenomenon of e-orality. This paper, therefore, seeks to examine and discuss the issues and challenges of e-orality in the contemporary Yoruba societies and how this has impacted on the language development and communicative competence of a child. Data are gathered through unstructured interview at selected rural communities. Presentation and analysis of data reveal that the natural “texture” of orality is not felt in the contemporary stage of e-orality. Keywords: E-orality, communicative competence, oral literature, language development, modern technologies *Corresponding Author. Email:
[email protected] ISSN 1727-5512 ©School of Education, The University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus http://www.cavehill.uwi.edu/fhe/hum/publications/EducationCERJ.htm References Akintunde, A.